Archive | MR Commentary

  • Nelson Mandela on Israel

    I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what’s on my mind.… Where to begin? How about 1964. Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then: “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

  • Contemporary Police Brutality and Misconduct

    The February 25, 2001 electoral victory of the Moldovan Communist party marked the first return to power of a Communist party in any of the sovereign fragments of the Former Soviet Union (“FSU”). If you have left wing politics and can use a dose of optimism, this event is a positive portent for—at last—an end to the Mafia capitalist regimes of “democratic reform” that constitute the glory of the U.S. victory in the cold war. The most interesting question is not what the Moldovan Communists can achieve in their sovereign ministate, but what can be hoped to happen as a result in the rest of the FSU community. But, you ask, in 2001 is the FSU a “community” in the sense that the Soviet Union was in, say, 1988? The only plausible answer is “yes and no.” The “no” side is easy enough to lay out, all you need is a current map and almanac. The “yes” side requires more effort

  • We Must Succeed!

    The drama of the November 7th elections further revealed the extent of Black exclusion from U.S. society at the turn of the century. Local officials, poll managers and attendants, police and the Supreme Court all played an active role in stripping Black people of the right to vote. This latest outrage is but part of a broader, on-going attack on the gains of previous progressive, labor and radical movements, and an assault on our communities

  • Media Giants Have a Pal at the FCC

    All you need to know about Michael Powell, whom President George W. Bush promoted this week to chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, can be summed up by the statements of close FCC watchers.

  • U.S. Wouldn’t Tolerate Our Election in Nicaragua

    Imagine the following hypothetical scenario: It is the Nicaraguan presidential election of 1990. On one side are the incumbent Sandinistas, on the other side their opposition, which is supported materially by the United States

  • A Silent Coup d’État

    Saturday morning December 9, 2000, I awoke with a sense of dread. Not since the week before the overthrow of the Allende government had I experienced that precise sensation. Before the day was done, my fear had come true: I experienced a coup d’état in my own country.